MLP IN THE MEDIA
*Warburg Pincus Completes $12 Billion Private Equity Fund – Oil & Gas 360®
Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm with $40 billion under management in 120 companies, announced this week that it has successfully raised its latest fund. The new fund, called the Warburg Pincus Private Equity XII, L.P., received third party commitments in excess of its $12 billion hard cap, the company said in a press release. The new fund is the largest that the firm has conducted since before the financial crisis. The new fund includes public and private pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations and high net-worth investors, according to Warburg Pincus. –Read More
*Bank of America: The Search for Yield Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Moved to Europe – Bloomberg
Mario Draghi will be Corporate America’s best friend in 2016, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Thanks to extensive monetary accommodation that has pushed returns on corporate bond in Europe to ultra-low levels, investors will have no choice but to search for yield across the Atlantic, the bank’s credit strategists contend. Global economic softness will ensure that any Federal Reserve tightening cycle is slow in nature, preventing investors from fleeing the asset class of investment grade, or high-grade, corporate debt, BofA says. – Read More
*Six MLPs That Can Thrive Even if Oil Remains Cheap – Barron’s
Portfolio manager Brian Watson is a fairly humble guy. Sure, he runs some of the top performing mutual funds in his category, but he’s not bragging about it. Humility is called for: The fund is down double digits this year. Watson, head of research at OppenheimerFunds’ SteelPath division, manages funds that invest in MLPs, or master limited partnerships, which are energy infrastructure companies once-prized by investors for income and tax advantages. The sector is down a punishing 22% year-to-date due to steep declines in energy prices. – Read More
*OPEC a Year Later: Who Will Adapt and Survive? – Oil & Gas 360®
Last November 27, OPEC sparked the decline in crude oil prices that would see both international benchmark Brent crude, and U.S. benchmark WTI crude, lose more than 50% of their value. The group decided to move away from its traditional role of maintaining a reasonable crude oil price in order to protect its market share around the world in the face of higher production from hydraulic fracturing in the United States. The OPEC decision, which the group finalized on Thanksgiving Day 2014, fundamentally changed the landscape of global oil markets. Producers were forced to focus on their most economic acreage and find ways to increase efficiencies in order to maximize their well economics. – Read More
*Why the air is rushing out of the some of the hottest ‘yield plays’ on the market – Bloomberg News
Years of low interest rates have sparked an intense search for yield, with many investors seeking out heftier returns in riskier corners of financial markets. So- called ‘yield plays’ including real estate investment trusts (Reits), master limited partnerships (MLPs), some initial public offerings, leveraged loans, and the bottom tier of the corporate credit market have offered relief for the return-ravenous, rate- restrained investor. With an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve now widely expected to take place next month, however, some of the air has been firmly kicked out of yield plays’ tires. – Read More
*DUCs in a Row for 2016: It’s Anybody’s Guess – Oil & Gas 360®
At last year’s The Oil & Gas Conference®, the term “sand” was mentioned repeatedly in regards to completion techniques and optimizations. The term of choice during the commodity downturn is “efficiency” as operators develop methods to generate the best bang for the buck. A popular topic in the third quarter earnings season, particularly for larger companies, was the amount of drilled but uncompleted wells. The deferred wells, known as DUCs for short, are garnering attention as a potential factor in the market’s consistent state of oversupply. – Read More
*Federal Reserve ends ‘too big to fail’ lending policy – UPI
The Federal Reserve Board approved a rule Monday prohibiting the government from extending emergency loans to “too big to fail” companies. The practice of intervening with loans was essential during the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, but was formally abandoned Monday to keep within the confines of the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010. The new limits, taking effect Jan. 1, mean the Federal Reserve is only allowed to loan money to “programs and facilities with ‘broad-based eligibility’ that have been established with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury,” a Federal Reserve statement said. – Read More
*Investors Are Taking the Air out of Some of the Hottest ‘Yield Plays’ in Markets – Bloomberg
Years of low interest rates have sparked an intense search for yield, with many investors seeking heftier returns in riskier corners of financial markets. So-called yield plays, including real estate investment trusts (Reits), master limited partnerships (MLPs), some initial public offerings, leveraged loans, and the bottom tier of the corporate credit market, have offered relief for the return-ravenous, rate-restrained investor. With an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve now widely expected to take place next month, however, some of the air has been firmly kicked out of yield plays’ tires. – Read More
*Fossil Fuel v. Renewable Energy: Did Green Slip through the Door while North American Oil & Gas Companies were Busy Creating the Shale Boom? – Oil & Gas 360®
Remember the iconic 1960-era engineer? He wore a pocket protector in the shirt pocket of his short-sleeved white dress shirt. He usually had two or three ballpoint pens sticking up next to a small slide rule—he was the symbol of a culture that respected and emphasized things like science, math, logic and precision, a culture for which automotive designers put rocket-like fins on the back of heavy steel cars powered by 8-cylinder engines. The American culture is vastly different today. – Read More
*Private equity looks to tap hedge fund growth – Financial Times
Private equity groups and others are increasingly turning to hedge funds as they seek to capitalise on the maturing industry’s rich fees and growth. Credit Suisse is restarting a business that buys minority stakes in hedge fund management businesses, and Goldman Sachs is near to closing its second fund to do the same, both in private equity-style vehicles. They are joining the likes of Blackstone, Affiliated Managers Group and Dyal Capital Partners at Neuberger Berman, some of which have been buying such stakes for a decade, and are up against strategic buyers from the private equity industry including KKR and Carlyle, which buy stakes or entire funds outright. – Read More
*EU seeks to reduce capital-raising costs for companies –Reuters
The European Union has proposed exempting more companies from having to issue a costly formal prospectus for investors in a bid to encourage more market-based financing across the region. EU financial services commissioner Jonathan Hill published on Monday his draft revisions to the 28-country bloc’s prospectus rules for companies that want to issue stocks or bonds to raise funds. He has proposed that companies be exempt from issuing a prospectus when they want to raise less than 500,000 euros, five times the current 100,000-euro threshold. – Read More
*U.S. Gasoline Prices Hit Seven-Year Low Ahead of Thanksgiving – Oil & Gas 360®
The cost of gasoline across the United States is averaging $2.09 per gallon, as of November 23—that’s 73 cents lower than a year ago, and the lowest level ahead of Thanksgiving since 2009, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Over the course of the last six Thanksgiving holidays, U.S. retail gasoline prices averaged $3.07, nearly a dollar more than the average price this year. The Thanksgiving holiday (November 25-29) is typically one of the heaviest travel seasons in the U.S., according to information from AAA. – Read More
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